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Report: City sees shopping spike

Preliminary reports indicating January sales tax receipts for Bartlesville decreased slightly when compared to the same time a year ago have been corrected and actually show a 10.04 percent increase — and, combined with February receipts, indicate an improvement from the previous year’s Christmas shopping season.

When numbers were initially released in January, City of Bartlesville Administrative Director and Chief Financial Officer Mike Bailey said the numbers could be in error due to the Oklahoma Tax Commission’s new online remittance system.

Supplemental payments have since been issued to all affected municipalities.

“Ultimately, the OTC corrected our sales tax and provided us with a supplemental payment of $145,510. This brought our year over year comparison to a 10.04 percent increase for the month,” Bailey said Friday. “These corrected results, combined with this month’s results produced an overall improvement of 5.89 percent from last year’s Christmas shopping season, which is great news given that these two months are typically the largest of the year.”

The city received $1,512,024 in sales tax revenues from the state in January.

The revenues are derived from the city’s 3 percent sales tax for sales occurring mostly in the last half of November 2012 and estimated sales for the first half of December 2012.

In January, sales tax revenues showed an increase by 5.08 percent from the same seven-month period of last year.

The city received $1,552,140 in sales tax revenues — a 2.14 percent increase year over year — from the state in the month of February.

The revenues are derived from sales occurring mostly in the last half of December 2012 and estimated sales for the first half of January.

For the fiscal year to date, the city’s sales tax revenues have increased by 4.66 percent from the same eight-month period of last year and are 5.66 percent above the five-year average for the same period.

“Hopefully, the city’s positive results thus far in the fiscal year will provide a cushion to sustain the city’s tax revenues in the event that recent federal tax changes negatively affect local retail spending,” Bailey said.

Other nearby communities saw mixed results in January.

Dewey received $65,892 in January, a 7 percent decrease from the January 2012 receipt of $70,855.

The City of Copan saw a 3.70 percent decrease when compared to revenues from the same period last year. Copan received $5,151 in January, down from $5,349 in January 2012.

Receipts from the City of Ochelata show an increase of 202.34 percent, year over year. Ochelata received $5,300 in January and $1,753 in January 2012.

The City of Ramona saw an increase of 113.51 percent when compared to the previous year. The city received $8,485 last month and $3,974 in January 2012.

Nowata received $67,290, a 5.84 percent decrease from the January 2012 receipt of $71,463.

Pawhuska saw a 12.96 percent increase, with revenues of $121,125 last month and $107,227 in January 2012.

Reports on February sales tax revenues for Dewey, Copan, Ochelata, Ramona, Nowata and Pawhuska were not yet available on Friday.